The current issue of National Geographic Magazine features an interesting one-page piece entitled “A Work-Weary World.” The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development tracked the annual hours worked around the world in 2003 and came up with some interesting findings:

South Korea, 2,390

Czech Republic, 1,972

Poland, 1,956

Greece, 1,938

Mexico, 1,857

Slovakia, 1,814

Australia, 1,814

New Zealand, 1,813

Japan, 1,801

Spain, 1,800

United States, 1,792

Hungary, 1,777

Canada, 1,718

Finland, 1,713

Portugal, 1,676

United Kingdom, 1,673

Ireland, 1,613

Italy, 1,591

Sweden, 1,564

Austria, 1,550

Belgium, 1,542

Denmark, 1,475

Germany, 1,446

France, 1,431

Netherlands, 1,354

Norway 1,337

While the full data set doesn’t appear to be easily available online, you can access a description of the study’s sources and a report on year-to-year percentage changes. Michael Boyer’s report on the study indicates that “once a nation cultivates wealth, work hours tend to drop.”